Czech Republic

Czech Republic: Ecumenical prayer against Islamophobes to take place in České Budějovice tomorrow

13.3.2015 20:24, (ROMEA) Tomorrow, Saturday 14 March, the "We Don't Want Islam in the Czech Republic" initiative will hold yet another demonstration, this time on Přemysl Otakar II. Square in the town of České Budějovice. In the Facebook announcement of the event, organizers led by Martin Konvička are tempting people to come by saying the event will feature the sale of propaganda items and refreshments and are attempting to ensure a big turnout by arranging for participants to drive there together.  full story

Czech President appoints Justice Minister Pelikán, known for his anti-racist work

Prague, 12.3.2015 18:43, (ROMEA) Czech President Miloš Zeman has appointed a new Justice Minister today. Robert Pelikán, a 35-year-old lawyer, now holds the post.  full story

Czech Republic: Romani youth beaten by police says officers told him he would die

Prague, 11.3.2015 22:58, (ROMEA) "I feared for my life," a Romani 19-year-old who recently experienced the worst date of his life told news server Romea.cz - the incident resulted in his fleeing through a forest at night and ended with his being unfit to return to work for more than a month. Nicolas Kurej contacted the ROMEA organization, which provides aid to victims of discrimination and hate violence, claiming he had been beaten up in two location, one of them a forest on the outskirts of Prague, in a brutal way by three men, two of whom were uniformed police officers from the Prague 14 Local Department of the Police of the Czech Republic.  full story

Commentary: Czech mayor declares war on "inadaptables" again

11.3.2015 19:12, (ROMEA) Mayor Jiří Čunek (Christian Democrats) has announced to the Czech News Agency that the town hall in Vsetín is establishing a working group on the issue of "inadaptables" and will "seek measures to make the town calm and safe and options for stopping these groups of inhabitants or individuals from causing problems and tensions in town." The Czech News Agency reports that the mayor believes the town hall needs to review whether its position on rent defaulters or other citizens who have repeated problems with maintaining order might be too generous in some cases.  full story

Director of Czech Gov't agency says petition against "gypsies" to PM is really about real estate

10.3.2015 19:10, (ROMEA) Dissatisfied citizens living at the Janov housing estate in the town of Litvínov have sent a petition to the Czech Government calling for a rigorous solution to their problems - they claim it is no longer possible to live there because of the "gypsy minority terrorizing the majority". They have also expressed concern that a hard-hitting anti-Romani event similar to the ones that took place there in 2008, which they call a "small-scale civil war", could be repeated.  full story

Czech Republic: Work by Aleš Veselý to be featured as part of Memorial of Silence

Prague, 9.3.2015 17:42, (ROMEA) A sizable statue by the sculptor Aleš Veselý in the form of railroad tracks heading to heaven will be part of the Memorial of Silence (Památník ticha) to be installed at Prague's Bubny train station. The location is slated to become not just a place for recalling the tragic history of the transports of Jews to the concentration camps, but also a center for discussions about the Holocaust and its legacy today  full story

Czech Republic: Audit of Romani newspaper finds no wrongdoing

9.3.2015 16:31, (ROMEA) On 11 January, Pavel Pečinka, the former Editor-in-Chief of the Romano hangos periodical, wrote to Czech Culture Minister Daniel Herman to say the publication had become a family business run in a non-transparent way with strange accounting practices and demanding an investigation. Several days ago the ministry undertook an audit and found no such problems at the editorial office.  full story

Czech Republic: Vandas re-elected DSSS chair

Prague, 9.3.2015 0:57, (ROMEA) The Workers' Social Justice Party (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti - DSSS) will be led for the next two years by its only chair to date, Tomáš Vandas (age 46). At the party's convention yesterday, 90 of the 92 delegates participating voted for him.  full story

Norwegian, UK, US ambassadors to Czech Republic praise nonprofit and school for Romani inclusion in Trmice

Trmice, 7.3.2015 21:07, (ROMEA) The Norwegian Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Siri Ellen Sletner, UK Ambassador to the Czech Republic Jan Thompson, and US Ambassador to the Czech Republic Andrew Shapiro have praised a nonprofit organization and a primary school in the town of Trmice as a good example of how social inclusion should work. Trmice is considered a socially excluded locality; more than one-third of the children attending the local school are Romani.  full story

Czech Trade Inspection Authority investigating firms leasing apartments at Janov housing estate

7.3.2015 20:13, (ROMEA) The long-term experience of Romani apartment-seekers in the town of Litvínov is unequivocal: Apartments are only available for them to lease at the Janov housing estate. Over the past few years a ghetto has gradually been created there.  full story

Czech opinion poll: Roma still the least-liked

Prague, 7.3.2015 2:09, (ROMEA) Of the various national groups living in the Czech Republic, sympathy for Arabs, Greeks, Jews and Serbs has declined compared to last year, according to a February survey by the Center for Public Opinion Research (CVVM). As in previous surveys, people continued to express the most sympathy for ethnic Czechs and Slovaks and the least sympathy for Romani people
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Czech Republic: "Living Library" combats prejudice

Prague, 7.3.2015 1:26, (ROMEA) "This has definitely helped me in that I became aware, from their stories, of how hard life can be for people," says high school student Agáta Matějková of her experience with the Living Library. She won't be borrowing Čapek or Hemingway there, but she is able to speak with the "books" she chooses - literally.  full story

Janov residents petition Czech PM over "gypsies"

7.3.2015 0:10, (ROMEA) Residents of the Janov housing estate in the town of Litvínov who are calling themselves the "decent majority" have sent a petition to Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka. The residents are asking the state to aggressively intervene in their neighborhood.  full story

Czech vice-mayor wants to turn ghetto into recreation zone

5.3.2015 0:44, (ROMEA) The town of Ústí nad Labem wants to transform the ghetto of Předlice, where two years ago a young woman was killed when a building collapsed, into a recreation zone. Is this a realistic vision?  full story

Czech Republic: Non-Romani and Romani neighbors don't communicate or share decision-making on local matters

Prague, 4.3.2015 20:21, (ROMEA) In order to acquire prospects in life that give one hope for the future, one must have high self-esteem, pride in oneself and one's own actions, and respect for one's own identity. These are the values that the debilitating misery in the ghettos deprives their residents of.  full story

Czech human rights film festival features films about Roma

Prague, 3.3.2015 21:58, (ROMEA) The 17th annual "One World" International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival will offer viewers 114 films from 59 countries (the complete festival program is here). "It's not that long ago that the basic principles of human freedom were not upheld in our country either. That's why it does no harm to take a moment before spring comes to look at the world from a different perspective than your everyday one," festival organizers say.  full story

Czech politicians avoid anti-racist demos, but will new Justice Minister change that?

Prague, 3.3.2015 20:57, (ROMEA) He has participated in several anti-racist assemblies and demonstrations, and in September 2011 he was an initiator of the Hate is No Solution (Nenávist není řešení) platform. Yesterday Robert Pelikán became the interim Czech Justice Minister.  full story

Czech Republic: Were the Romani Council elections in Ostrava a farce, or a sign of hope?

28.2.2015 20:18, (ROMEA) According to various estimates, there are between 25 000 to 40 000 Romani people living in the city of Ostrava, of whom about 6 000 live in "excluded localities" or ghettos. Earlier this month, elections took place in Ostrava for a "Romani Council".  full story

Analysis: Without debt relief, Czech Gov't efforts to integrate Roma may not succeed

Prague, 28.2.2015 18:21, (ROMEA) The impoverished, unfree people in the ghettos of the Czech Republic need to "raise up their heads" - they need to become free again, to find better prospects for their lives. How can this be achieved?
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Karel Holomek: The Roma are a nation! That is the key to their integration.

28.2.2015 1:50, (ROMEA) I have several basic comments to make about the opinions recently expressed about Romani people by Roman Krištof in his interview with Romea.cz. Coincidentally, this has become a big issue now, not because of the polemics around Krištof's opinions, but because the Government has just adopted, as a binding document, its Romani Integration Strategy to 2020 and, shortly before that, the lower house adopted an amendment to the Schools Act concerning the education of Romani children in the Czech schools (which has not been very successful to date).  full story